Thirty hours a week spread over four days, including one weekend per month. It’s a pretty sweet semi-retirement for Dr. Michael LaRocque, an Escondido urologist turned part-time family medicine physician. Compared to three exhaustive decades of running his own specialty practice, LaRocque, 71,...

San Diego unveiled a proposal on Thursday to allow the city’s 15 permitted medical marijuana dispensaries to also sell marijuana to recreational users when that becomes legal in California in January 2018. San Diego is the only city in the county that has indicated it intends to allow the sale...

For most surfers, it’s hard enough finding that perfect mix of board, beach, balance and brute strength to battle the waves. Now imagine doing it with no eyes or legs. Today through Sunday, 77 disabled athletes from 21 countries will face that challenge at the 2016 Stance ISA World Adaptive Surfing...

The national Alzheimer’s Association said Tuesday it is working to maintain its presence in San Diego County after a split with its local chapter about a year ago. The new local chapter, now operating from an office in Liberty Station, is continuing to reach out for donations and provide programs...

In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina devastated Mississippi’s Gulf Coast, where David Illich grew up and much of his family still lives. In the weeks and months after the catastrophic storm, the Escondido audiologist was overwhelmed by the generosity shown to his relatives and other storm victims...

Subject: Joe Pacheco Age: 35 Residence: Casa de Oro A couple of years ago, Pacheco carried 265 pounds on his 6-foot-1 frame. After playing weekend flag football, he was sore for days. “My body wasn’t in condition,” he says. “It wasn’t being used through the week.” So, he changed his diet and started...

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Frank “Sonny” Taitano has made history as the first person to undergo a concurrent heart-liver transplant surgery in the county. That detail is not lost on his wife, Linda Castro, but she tends to view the milestone operation by the ways it is already changing his life. While her husband still...

After more than a year of work, Palomar Health is set to move its birth center four miles west Thursday afternoon. Citing the high cost of keeping its aging downtown medical center open, Palomar’s board voted in the summer of 2015 to close the structure and shift its remaining services to Palomar...

An El Cajon doctor pleaded guilty Tuesday to seven counts of distributing addictive painkillers without a legitimate medical purpose, admitting he did so in exchange for sex with two patients, according to his plea agreement. Naga Raja Thota, 62, an anesthesiologist who ran a pain-management center...

Confirmed flu cases in San Diego County are starting to pile up, but public-health experts said it’s still too soon to know whether the 2016-2017 influenza season will be mild, moderate or severe. That’s because the bulk of infections usually occur in the first few months of each new year. At the...

Depression among adolescents age 12 to 17 has increased since 2005, especially among girls, says a study published in the November issue of Pediatrics. Among girls, the prevalence of major depressive episodes increased to 17 percent in 2014 from 13 percent in 2005. The increase was lower among...

A short-circuit in an outdoor electrical transformer that serves Palomar Health’s campus in downtown Escondido has forced the health system to divert all new maternity deliveries to its hospital in Poway, according to the system’s officials. In a statement Tuesday afternoon, Palomar Health said...

With only hours left before picket lines formed in front of Sharp hospitals countywide, the union representing about 4,800 of the health system’s registered nurses canceled its walkout notice Sunday evening. John Cihomsky, Sharp’s vice president of public affairs, said the United Nurses Associations...

As researchers learn more about the devastating health effects of Zika, county crews this past week continued an unprecedented effort to stop the virus from spreading locally. For the 10th time this year, San Diego County’s vector-control crews sprayed insecticide in a neighborhood known to have...

Dr. Leon Kelley has heard it all, seen it all, diagnosed it all. “A virus,” Kelley assured the mother of 3-year-old Jaionii Pires, after examining the girl’s sore throat and rash. “This will take care of it,” he said, writing a prescription. “You’ll see.” To Jaionii’s mom, those were comforting...

Three years ago, I was 235 pounds and well overweight. According to my BMI, I was obese. I was low on energy, lacked ambition, was physically inactive, stressed at work and had an awful diet. I had also just been blessed with a new baby girl. I was eating plenty of very unnatural foods and felt...

Health

Some high-profile researchers are pushing back against a new recommendation about statins that advises cardiologists to prescribe the cholesterol-lowering drugs to Americans if they have one or more risk factors of cardiovascular disease. The powerful U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, whose...

Do you sometimes experience a sudden desire for chips or hankering for a hamburger? You’re not alone. Cravings are one of the biggest diet downfalls. Studies by Tufts University and the Monell Chemical Senses Center have found that nearly everybody experiences food cravings. Here is advice on conquering...

From childhood, Bob Hartdegen got used to comments from other kids and family that he walked awkwardly and ran “funny.” By 16, doctors were forced to fuse his ankles to stop constant sprains. At 31, one of his hip sockets had to be rebuilt from bone grafts. That’s the same year the now-63-year-old...

It isn’t just a walk. It’s the 60-mile journey to end breast cancer. And for the past five years, Marquietta Harden parks herself on the final day of the annual fundraiser on a Mission Bay bench that serves as mile marker 4.5 in the walk. Wearing a pink shirt, lei and tennis shoes, she cheers until...

With iPads, floor-to-ceiling windows, glass-tiled bathrooms and a private room for each patient, Jacobs Medical Center in La Jolla reflects an ambitious and expensive push to make hospitals more hospitable. The 10-story structure, set to open today, brings several medical firsts to the San Diego...

Sharp HealthCare said it is tapping about 1,000 replacement workers and rescheduling elective surgeries and other medical procedures in preparation for a nursing strike that could start on Nov. 28. The nurses, represented by the United Nurses Associations of California, presented Sharp administrators...

About 200 skilled-trades workers are picketing UC San Diego Health facilities in La Jolla and Hillcrest on Thursday to protest what they describe as below-market wages. Represented by Teamsters Local 2010, the 218 workers fill 15 job classifications — from carpenters and electricians to plumbers...

When the Susan G. Komen 3-Day begins at the Del Mar Fairgrounds on Friday morning, Ann Texas will not be among the roughly 4,000 walkers. The National City resident wanted to be but was committed to working all weekend. Still, she plans to be in the crowd applauding the participants setting off...

Condolences from across the region and nation are streaming in for the family and colleagues of Dr. Richard Butcher, the family practitioner venerated for his work with the poor and disadvantaged in southeastern San Diego. April Noble said Wednesday that her father, who underwent multiple bypass...

You may be glad you won’t be listening to any more 2016 presidential debates and election ads. But think of all the things you do want to hear: music, children laughing, birds chirping and conversations with family and friends. Most of us take these sounds for granted. But we shouldn’t. A third...

A registered nurse was fired under false pretenses after she made a legitimate inquiry into the source of wrinkle-reducing Botox medication for patients, an administrative law judge decided last week. The nurse, Sheena L. Waterhouse, was fired Aug. 25 from her job at Avalon Laser Inc., a medical...

Covered California, the state’s health insurance exchange, is at a crossroads brought about by President-elect Donald Trump’s vow to repeal at least parts of the Affordable Care Act. Obamacare pays income-based subsidies to 87 percent of the 1.3 million Californians currently covered by plans sold...

Even as President-elect Donald Trump and Republican leaders in Congress vow to dismantle Obamacare, promotions for 2017 enrollment are forging ahead. Covered California plans to launch a statewide bus tour on Saturday, starting in San Diego County, to urge the uninsured to sign up and get current...

If you ask Harry Titus his secret to staying young, the 99-year-old Oceanside retiree’s stock answer is “good whiskey and wild women.” Wry quips like this serve Titus well at his weekly improv comedy classes at the MiraCosta College Community Learning Center in Oceanside. He celebrated his birthday...

Ten years ago, Keith Stuessi decided to celebrate his 40th birthday by running his first half-marathon, but he never got past the four-mile mark in training. This winter, the retired doctor is trying again and this time running with a purpose after a near-death experience. Stuessi, 50, is a member...

The top executive at Palomar Health District earned more than $841,200 in wages last year, making him the fourth-highest-paid special district employee in the state, according to 2015 data. The CEO, Robert A. Hemker, was one of three employees at special districts in San Diego County to be paid...

Darcy Eaton is a morning person. When most people are still sipping their first cup of coffee, she’s already exercising. Eaton, an Ironman triathlete, often gets up at 5 a.m., begins training at 6 and is done by 8. Whether it’s running, biking, swimming or some form of cross-training, Eaton is...

The 20th annual Susan G. Komen San Diego Race for the Cure brought about 20,000 participants and spectators to Balboa Park Sunday, raising an estimated $1.1 million for breast cancer research. An event that has become famous for turning streets in the park pink, the 20th incarnation was no exception...

Scientists in recent years have bemoaned the increasing difficulty of securing funds from the National Institutes of Health, but don’t tell that to the Scripps Whittier Diabetes Institute in La Jolla. Since August 2015, the nonprofit organization has brought in three substantial grants from the...